Daily Roundup- Thursday, March 12th

While the Mets were busy jettisoning everyone off the roster that the fans decided to boo, they saw one name and kept him. Not because they couldn’t find someone, eat the salary and live with it. No, they felt that he could make a comeback if he wanted to. In fact, he promised them as much when he prompted a meeting with Met officials. This promise is now something he will have to come through on, something he has worked hard on and something he will be judged on later.
The Mets are hoping that Luis Castillo can be the second baseman that they thought. Mets beat writer, Adam Rubin wrote a story about him.

When we traded for Luis Castillo I thought we were getting the hit machine. A perfect number two hitter who gets on base all the time. But last year, what we got was a gimpy 2b that seemed to end up hitting into double plays all the time. That kind of perception led to Met fans booing him into the bench and pining for Orlando Hudson who was a free agent and who pined back for the Mets to get him...at $10 million per. The Mets might have a huge steal on their hands if they can get him back.
The one thing that people don’t seem to understand is that many of the players on the Mets had down years. Carlos Delgado for all his second half heroics had a down first half which lead to his stats being down. Castillo in the same way battled many injuries that really slowed him down and he couldn’t leg out doubles or singles or get any lift on the ball.
People seem to suggest that since Delgado and Castillo are getting older, those numbers should continue to slope downward, especially Delgado whom they say hit a lucky patch. A lucky patch is two weeks being unconscious and hitting everything. Delgado had a torrid everything after the series with the Yankees on June 27th. That’s a whole three months of luck which is unheard of. I’ve always been a fan of his approach to the game and his consistent stats tell me that whatever glitch he had in his swing during the early part of 08 was fixed and he’s primed to continue to be good for the rest of 09. Reyes’ year wasn’t all that great either and might lead some to believe that his stats are what they are and there’s not going to be much room for improvement on his part which I believe is a big bag of bull.
Wright can be a 30 30 guy for the next two or three years but I doubt Jerry is going to make Wright run like that. Meanwhile Beltran, if he can get his average up. But the key here again is Castillo hitting in either the one or the two hole. He needs to get on base on a regular basis for the Mets offense to be effective and with all the rehabbing and training and all the good things I’ve seen out of him this year, I can’t wait for him to have a break out year and finally NOT hear groans whenever he’s announced on the PA machine at Taxpayer ballpark.

A few days ago I gave finances being a critical reason as to why the Buffalo Bills decided to sign Terrell Owens. Well apparently financial is also the reason why Jerry Jones let go of T.O. according to Randy Galloway.

My thought on Jerry Jones has always been this: he tries too hard. But like George Steinbrenner you can’t blame him. I believe that Jerry genuinely loves the game of football so much he wants to be a part of it. He’s the kind of kid in high school who wished he could be a football star (he played at Arkansas), and watched with envy as those guys got the pretty girls and all that. So when he got rich he never forgot that memory and decided that if he couldn’t make the team, he would BUY the team. It makes sense to me and makes sense of all the fanatical behavior he employs. The kind of out right control he has over all the daily operations of the team. I mean, can you name me what industry he got big in so that he could afford the Dallas Cowboys back in 1989? (ok fine, you are right, its oil but that doesn’t count when you talk about Texans, don’t all those rich bums make money oil?).
The fact is, he can’t help getting in his own way. But the one thing he loves more than the game of football and the Dallas Cowboys is himself and he needs credit. If he had a yes sir, no sir coach like he has had since Jimmy Johnson left and up until Bill Parcells and then back to Wade Phillips, then everything would be fine and dandy. But he wants to be the guy who gets the credit for the Cowboys successes, even swinging and missing at some very controversial people like Pacman Jones.
If Jerry can get all those seats filled (he has 15,000 more to sell off according to the article) he should get all the credit, but that credit means little to him. He wants to hear the Commissioner say something nice to the guy on some podium in some stadium sometime in February. Maybe he can perform during halftime of the Super Bowl this year when the Giants go again to the Super Bowl to face the Jets.


Now a few words about Big Love by New York Times columnist Mike Tierney. Not the tv show on HBO, no, the life story of Travis Henry.

I know as a responsible blogger I shouldn’t be doing this but there in lies the conundrum. I’m a blogger therefore any responsibility that I have is to my readership and thus not to any principles of any moral based system. So if I want to laugh at a guy who has had 9 children with 9 different women and wonders where his money went when he owes $170,000 a year on child support? Yeah, its funny. Also funny is that this is a guy who had fathered three children by the time he came into the NFL and then laughed off the video tape warning the NFL rookies about inappropriate decisions saying “that won’t be me.” Wait, kid number three didn’t clinch it for him? Nothing about Travis Henry says responsible. The fact that he continually gets women looking like a cross between Shrek and Idi Amin is miraculous, but the fact that he continuously falls for the same stupid mistake is amazing to me. Just be thankful that he never met the OctaMom. I mean can you imagine the combined carnage they would’ve done to the Welfare system of our country? The best part of this story was the last line, the story is at least worth that much. I won’t ruin it for you, but it has a happy ending.

Speaking of whining babies, the story of McJayGate as the locals are calling it in Denver. The Broncos and Jay Cutler continue to have it out with both sides realizing that they don’t want each other yet both sides remaining dedicated to one another. Does that make sense? It does, to one guy, Brian Dawkins who after 13 years in Philly and almost a decade as a teammate of Donovan McNabb’s can tell you is accustomed to and ready to deal with writes Mike Klis.

Don’t get me wrong but if a team tried to trade me I’d be ticked off too. I’d be upset. Then five minutes later I’d realize it’s a business and I’d get over it. Sure the new regime didn’t handle it right. I mean its been one questionable decision after another with this team since the firing of Mike Shanahan. One thing they need is for their franchise QB to be in camp and ready to go. The Broncos will need the very best out of Jay to go anywhere this year playoffs wise. They know that. What I don’t get is, in the system that McDaniels is installing isn’t Jay Cutler a better version of Matt Cassel? I mean if he’s as good as they say, shouldn’t Cutler actually help the system immensely? I mean look at all the weapons the Broncos have. I just don’t get this at all. My head is hurting. Goodbye.